Shark Freediving

Yesterday some of the deepest men and women in the world (and I’m sure we’re not talking purely about diving here tested their mettle in the most technically and physically demanding deep constant weight discipline – No Fins. With so many black-outs in the women’s heats, every single woman with a white card had got through, but this didn’t mean that the divers were now complacent and resting on their laurels. It meant we had an amazing four National and one World Record announced, the only one not, being Olga Suryakova, who has the unfortunate coincidence of having the same nationality as Nathalia Molchanova, who’d announced a World Record. Given the number of ‘casualties’ in the heats, and the obviously ambitious depths all divers had announced, I think everyone, particularly the safety divers were expecting a lively time again. However, we got it totally wrong – six white cards out of six, giving Natalia a new World Record of 62m. Any woman hoping to challenge her had better hurry up before she gets too deep!

But having said that, it’s an awesome dive (having had my first ever black-out attempting 60m CNF, I most certainly know!) but looking at the start list which was a COMBINED mens and womens finals, one could have been forgiven for thinking it was two separate competitions – even Natalia was shallower, by some thirteen metres, than the shallowest qualifying male! Come on girls – let’s try and catch up with those men!

But credit where credit is most certainly due; the records and medals: Brigitte Banegas of France set a new National Record of 50m – apparently she’s only been training for a few months and it’s only equalisation that’s stopping her going deeper. She looks fit and very strong, so hopefully we’ll see much deeper dives from her in the future. Next was Junko Kitahama of Japan setting a nice Record for her country with 52m, and already we’re into the medals; Bronze went to Jana Strain, with a Canadian, Pan-American AND Continental Record, I believe, of 54m to boot – oh and she also had a birthday yesterday! A very, very happy one for her, I’m sure. Silver went to Niki Roderick of New Zealand with a National Record of 55m – she is here and being trained by her boyfriend, that little-known freediver, Martin Stepanek. Apparently she’s done very close to that depth in competition a few times so it was a comfortable announcement for her first World Championships – hopefully with more experience and confidence under her (very low weight) belt, she’ll be giving Natalia something to reckon with in the future. And last but so very not least was Natalia herself, with a stonkingly easy dive of 62m, which apparently she hadn’t yet reached in training. Gold and a new World Record to Russia!!!

And dropping the line another 13 metres, we are into the men’s finals. The French ‘team’ were up first with Christian Maldame, Morgan Bourc’his and Guillaume Nery announcing – and achieving – 75m, 76m and 78m respectively! Not only great diving but what appears like great support and cameraderie from the team, all working together for the best results. Guillaume, who set the World Record of 113m in Constant Weight last year, decided to focus on No Fins after the intensity of that experience, and found that not only did he love and excel in diving Unassisted, but that it also made his Constant Weight dives feel easier (well, erm, duh, as he himself said, ‘it’s like covering the same distance running or riding a bike!’). So William T was getting nervous as Guillaume arrived in Deans Blue Hole, but it wasn’t to be. He was one of many divers who found the conditions here strangely difficult to deal with – equalisation and mouthfill problems, unexpected black-outs, that kind of thing – and so in the end had to be content with a National Record. Which, it must be noted he stole not from himself, but from Morgan with his 76m dive, just a few minutes earlier!

Alexey was back – and so were his black-outs. An ambitious National Record attempt of 83m ended on the surface with a tiny black-out (again screams of ‘reshie, reshie’ – or something like that – from the Russian contigent, which we now ALL know means ‘breathe, breathe’!). Very sad, but he was fine and still has the Constant Weight finals to look forward to.

Will Winram, the freediver-cum-comedian from Canada, who last year dived for France, but this year has switched back to Canada, announced 86m, which everyone knows is well within his capacity but for some reason, the last two years, Will has been haunted by demons at depth, developing a habit of turning early. No longer so! Steaming to the plate, where he claims he was ’so f***ing narked’ that he grabbed the light instead of the tag – twice – he then had an easy, happy, totally off his head ride to the surface where, still apparently narked, he performed a faultless surface protocol and was the second Canadian of the day to do the whole National, Pan-American, Continental record thing!

Not so for Herbert – a massive 89m dive from the man who held the World Record in this, his least favourite of disciplines, in fact probably least favourite thing in the world. But with his breathhold and his nerves of steel – and even with his most HORRIBLE technique – if anyone can, Herbert can! I was coaching him and all was looking good. As he approached the surface he looked a little weak, but then again it’s Herbert’s trademark to ascend as slowly as possible in the final few metres to avoid DCS. On the surface he removed his facial equipment, gave the OK sign and then stopped. I can’t tell you what was racing through my mind…. ‘he’s OK, he’s just getting his breath’, ‘ no, he’s on the edge and doesn’t know what he’s doing’, ‘no, it’s OK, he has plenty of ti….’. ‘SAY ‘I’M OK’, Herbert!,’ I yelled at him. My second guess he been right – he was absolutely on the edge. Not so far that he didn’t hear or couldn’t react to my yells, but enough that when he did react he forgot that he’d given the OK sign – and gave it again and was thereby DQed! Man, I was gutted. Grant was gutted, Everyone was gutted. It’s rare to see Herbert mess up like that (he much prefers packing black-outs!) and I’ve been running it through my head – could I have prevented it in any way? I’m not sure… One positive thing – for Herbert anyway, is that he’s ‘never going to do this f***ing discipline EVER again.’ I guess that might make Will T happy too

Talking of which – yes, he did it. Rumours are that he’s done MUCH deeper in training, so we suspect it was an easy dive. But Will’s a secretive man so only he and his closest buddies, and I presume, wife, Brittany, will know. But respect to the man! He did a 90m WR CNF dive, pulled the whole competition together, made it happen, brought 50-something athletes, plus judges, safety team, videographers and more to the Blue Hole here in the Bahamas. And no doubt will be cranking out World Records approaching the 100’s in the near future.

So, mens final tally was Gold to Trubridge, Silver to Winram and a surprising Bronze to Nery! I watched most of it from the beach, reporting the news on camera, got my first sunburn and had a thoroughly enjoyable day.

Resting today and up tomorrow for the Constant Weight finals. What can I say – I’m HUGELY surprised by Natalia’s announcement – has she ever NOT announced a World Record??? This could be a first!!! I decided to play it safe and dive to the bottom of ‘my’ Blue Hole in Dahab which I’ve done often in training. I feel confident that, with the changes I’ve made recently that I could do 100m and probably challenge Natalia for + 100m dives in the not too distant future, but this competition is about medals more than records and, presuming she would be diving deeper than my comfort zone, I chose a ’safe’ dive (blimey, I’d better not black-out now, after having said that!!! It’s unlikely that she’ll falter on a 97m dive, unless she’s not feeling 100%…. so, all going well, I’m looking at Silver tomorrow. Jarmila, Klara and Misuzu are fighting it out for Bronze with 74, 73 and 72m announcements respectively. But of course things can change at any moment and we could see Olga Suryakova, who has stealthily and consistently worked her way into both finals against all odds, make a medal with a 63m dive!

As for the men, well, some BIG announcements. No surprises there, they all did +100m just to qualify. Johan Dahlstrom is up first with 101m – he so narrowly missed 100m in points in the heats by losing the tag on the way up. He was also pretty narked, or on the edge at the surface, doing the full surface protocol twice, so it’s anyone’s guess… Then the platform workers have to drop the line a full eight metres for the next diver as we hit the top five, all of whom have each held World Records in at least one of the six competitive disciplines;  Guillaume will dive 109m, four metres off his former World Record, Carlos 110m (on a competition PB of 105m!!!), Will T has also announced 110m, Alexey is aiming for a massive 111m (all or bust, I suspect!), and Herbert, as usual, brings up the rear (phnarrr, phnarrr) with his penultimate World Record depth of 114m, which he did easily here in April this year.

It’s be a thrilling, literally breath-taking day tomorrow!

Wow, what a final! Where there were quite a lot of blackouts with the women in the series, in the finals they all performed perfectly! Winner with the women with a new world record of 62 meters depth is Natalia Molchanova from Russia. Niki Roderick got silver and Jana  Strain received a bronze medal for her 54 meter dive. Great birthday present for Jana! Congrats.

With the men the French all performed perfectly. Guillaume Nery set a new French record with a 78 meter dive. Unfortunately the son of the women’s winner, Alexey Molchanov, had a blackout with his 83 meter attempt. William Winram did a perfect job by doing a 86 meter dive and due to the fact that Herbert Nitsch couldn’t finish his surface protocol correctly, William got second place. William Trubridge performed perfectly with a new world record constant no fins dive of 90 meters.

Congratulations to all! With two new world records and 8 new national records it was a big day!

Yesterday Christian Ernest set a new world record in the very special discipline ‘unashamed’ at the Bahamas competition site. In short: no fins, no nothing, just your naked body, diving down to 50 meters! Judge Clara Hansson had a hard time staying concentrated.

And here they are; the announced performances for the constant no fins finals for the men and women, that will take place tomorrow morning. If everything goes well, we will see three new world records and a total of nine national records.

With the women Natalia Molchanova is going for a world record with 62 meters. Niki Roderick and Jana Strain will fight it out for place two, if Natalia is successful.

For the men William Trubridge is going for a new world record with 90 meters, which shouldn’t be a problem if he can control his dive like he normally does in training. Herbert Nitsch is going for it and tries to go deeper then the current world record with a 89 meter attempt. That will be something. Deepest dive for him in training is 78 meters and in competition 74 meters. If he can make it, it will be a big progress.

Good luck to all tomorrow!

Today is rest and training day. Tomorrow is constant weight time for the women, so people are doing some small trainings and take some rest and prepare mentally for the days to come.

What was interesting about the first two competition days was the difference in blackout ratios between the men and the women. Amazing to see so many expert women blackout compared to the expert men. I guess the men came more prepared and more calculated. The gap between the top divers and the lesser-gods is bigger with the men then with the women.

Anyway, below is the final ranking of the first two days. The names in yellow will show up during the constant no fins final on Thursday.

The men are finished with their constant no fins attempts. Only two blackouts and 1 disqualification. I expected way worse! The top guys who I picked for the finales are all in. The French even with 3 guys!

Herbert was once again playing around by not bringing back his tag from 74 meters, so he got a one point reduction, but he already knew before the dive that he was in the finals with one point less.

It will be exciting to see the announcements for the finals. Tomorrow is rest day and the day after it’s time for constant weight.

Well, we’ve completed the heats of No Fins; women dived yesterday, men today. and I have to say, if the first two days are anything to go by, we’ll see some impressive dives and some big surprises too!

So, first off, the women. With 13 women starting, it was a small comp, but nonetheless exciting for that. Unfortunately Heidi Heidenreich of Germany started an early trend with a small black-out on her 35m dive – but with two years out of the water, it was an ambitious target. With no plans to do CWT, she’s now looking forward to a lovely holiday on Long Island with her boyfriend, Mark

Out of the 13 divers, only six got white cards, including the starter!!! Black-outs came from some of the most promising divers; Kathryn McPhee, who unfortunately also suffered a squeeze; and Jarmila Solvencikova who joined Kathryn on the squeezing, although for her it was her first – ‘it doesn’t feel good here,’ she told me, pointing to her chest. Just two years ago in Sharm Jarmila took Gold with a 50m dive and think then I think she’s felt the pressure to perform. She attempted a World Record in the discipline last year, but blacked out just a metre or so from the surface on a 62m dive and since then has struggled with the expectation and pressure of being the one to challenge Molchanova. Oh how I know how that feels!! You have my heart, Jarmila!

Klara Hansson suffered the fourth black-out of the day, which seemed to go on forever, but she recovered perfectly and was in great spirits again today, coaching Christian Ernest on his CNF dive, but more on that later.

Of course Natalia Molchanova did an easy 55m dive to qualify for the finals and will be joined by ALL other white card divers – certainly Junko of Japan who did the happiest National Record I think I have ever seen with 48m, Brigitte Banegas of France added a massive 11m on to her former National Record in CNF, and the shallowest diver to qualify is Olga Suryakova with a 40m dive. For sure she never expected to get through! Also through are NZ’s Niki Roderick who is coached by boyfriend, Martin Stepanek, and Jana Strain of Canada, who did a predictably strong performance of 46m. Safety certainly had their work cut out for them with all the black-outs and it was a good opportunity to really test the teamwork on the platform and in the water with some real stress situations.

Today the men were up – and down! It was a much busier field with 26 divers – and a massive 11 National Records. Sweden had a fabulous day, with all three divers setting National Records; first Anders Larsson with 63m, then Sebastian Naslund with an amazingly strong 65m and Christian Ernest was smiling EVEN more than usual with a perfect 66m for the Scandinavian record too. But there was real national bonding going on and happiness from each diver for each other’s performance, even if they only managed to hold the record for a few minutes. The French – Morgan Bourchis, Christian Maldame and Guillaume Nery – demonstrated perfect training and team tactics (even though it’s not a team competition) – three dives to 73m, each executed with absolute ease and grace – they are certainly worth watching! Their tactics paid off – all three of them through to the finals!

Also through, with no big surprises, are Will T, Will W, Herbert and Alexey, although he nearly fluffed it by almost blacking out AFTER his surface protocol, although with Jana and Natalia screaming at him to breathe in their respective languages, I think any man would have been foolish not to listen!

Sad points of the men’s comp were Christian Moller, my flatmate and who I was coaching, and Kerian Hibbs. Christian made it to the surface and looked like he was going to make it – perhaps with a bit more hook breathing he would have held on, but it was almost a repeat performance of my black-out on 100m here in April earlier in the year; surface, breathe and then fall gently back into the water and the arms of the waiting safety divers. Man, I felt for him! Kerian was also a heartbreaking black-out – 72m should have been an easy one for him, a dive he’s done three times already in training. He was calm but confident and I was amazed and gutted to see him falter and try and grab for the line at around 3m from the surface, then exhale and have to be brought to the surface. It’s dives like these two, when the diver SHOULD make the performance, and has worked so hard, and placed their heart into every stroke of the dive, that make everyones’ heart sink and you wonder how, despite the smiles, the diver is really feeling.

Also worth mentioning are the Danish National Records – jointly held now by the two Mads – Becker Jorgenson and Isberg. They both hit 63m. What a pity Christian couldn’t have made it a threesome (you know what I mean!;-). Will Winram set a new Canadian record – hurrah, at last!! – as did Jure Daic of Slovenia, Rob King of USA, Antero Joki of Finland, Adel Abu Haliqa of UAE and Jason Weller-Barrett – an unlikely name for a Spaniard if ever I heard of one!

At the end of it all I think was the highlight of my day, when a lovely French doctor came up and said he would have to help me get undressed! REALLY?!!? Yes – unfortunately it was all in the name of science. Fred is a physiologist with the French team and he is doing ECG test on any willing athletes. So I got myself all wired up with electrodes all over my chest, cover the lot with stickers, and then put my wetsuit on over the lot. Finally a cute little backpack holding the computer to which everything was connected. Debbie (BEFZ videographer) was excited as she thought I looked like I had a scuba set on my back. Personally I think it looked more like a small rocket-launcher and was having all sorts of fantasies of how deep I might be able to go if it were true, and how much fun it would be rocketing back to the surface from 100+m! No such luck – I got a needle stuck in my finger – twice, before and after the dive to check my lactate levels and had to fin down to 60m and back. Still it was a nice training dive and lots of fun to work with him. Now I just have to have my teeny weeny lungs checked to find out how small they really are (last count a puny 3.7 litres!) and that’s it – a three month wait for the results.

Tomorrow is rest day before women’s heats in Constant Weight start on Monday. The games have started in terms of what to announce – how many women can dive below 70m? Hmmm, with Kathryn’s squeeze and what she thinks is a possible throat infection coming on which exaccerbated her black-out yesterday, it’s unclear whether she’ll be diving that deep now. Jana? Don’t think she’s been below 60m… Niki Roderick – no idea! Jarmila can go below 70m and I don’t even need to mention Natalia! So will 60m be enough or should I do 70m to be safe? Well, I have another 12 hours before I have to drop that piece of paper into the sealed announcement box so a little sleep and lots of second-guessing between now and then!

The weather today was perfect – clear, warm, great visibility in the water and the sun shone all day! The safety guys are great – really well organised and extremely good company in the water – a pleasure to dive with. I loved seeing Phil doing a reverse variable at the end of the day to bring the bottom plate up for the night – he free immersioned his way down and at 45 seconds, as agreed, the line was brought up – it looked so much fun as he popped through the surface of the water, as if he were jumping out of a giant birthday cake as a surprise!

Then home to chat with Christian and eat my first real food of the day as the sun set…. It’s really not too shabby, this lifestyle!

In about 5 hours the first male freediver will start in todays competition field. With 26 announced performances the men are with twice as much performers as the women yesterday.

The first diver has a top time of 9:00  (see the clock in the sidebar on my website for local Bahamas time) and the last will go at 13:56. If you look at the list below you can see that while we didn’t here much during training William Winram has announced 80 meters while the other guys who are also capable tot 80 meters announced less to be sure to get in the finals.

We will see what will happen today in a few hours. If communication is the same as yesterday, results will come in with a delay of around 30 to 60 minutes. Good luck to everybody today!

Below the official results of today. And what a result list it is! Out of the 13 performances, only 6 of them got a white card. 3 yellow cards that gave point reductions and a massive total of 4 blackouts.

It was to be expected that so many problems would occur. Constant no fins is the most demanding discipline and everything has to be okay if you want to perform at your best.

The best 3 women will go to the finals were they can try again. Natalia Molchanova, Niki Roderick and Jana Strain are the 3 deepest of today that came up and didn’t blackout. Congrats to them. While Natalia is for sure the strongest here, we will see how much deeper the two other girls can go.

Photo by Jarmila

Today is the first competition day of the world championships in the Bahamas. First to go are the ladies in the constant no fins (CNF) category, were they have to swim down along a line and up again without the use of any fins, just by breast stroke. This is probably the most athletic discipline of them all.

While the opening ceremony was already on Wednesday, news slowly comes in. Unfortunately we don’t have much video’s from what is going on in the last two days, but asking around learns that everything goes smoothly.

Yesterday was the official first training day and besides Herbert doing a reverse variable weight dive (swimming down, lifted up) to 122 meters, it was another normal training day.

So, now the first competition day will start with a total of 13 women competing in the discipline constant no fins. Deepest woman of the day will Natalia Molchanov with an announced depth of 55 meters. 9 women are diving within 8 meters from each other, so it’s a pretty tight pack.

For sure during the finals it is going to be deeper then this. I’ve put  an extra widget in the sidebar of the website with the local time of the Bahama’s. This way everybody can follow exactly at what time they need to cross their fingers for their favorite athletes.

• Check-In Time: This is the time the athlete have to report themselves for the judges.
• Top Time: This is the time they have to start the dive.
• Announced depth: The depth in meters what they are going to attempt.
• Announced dive time: Important for safety reasons. This way  safety knows when to dive down or to activate the counter ballast system that can retrieve a freediver from the deep very fast.
• Scuba cert: If the athlete is scuba certified. This so they can breath on an pure oxygen cylinder to decompress at 5 meters depth. The people who don’t have a scuba certification are in bad luck and if they have a problem, too bad for them apparently.